Sonia Gandhi, Rahul to hold another consultation: Congress sets the ball rolling for change

With a number of Congress leaders, particularly from states, resenting not being invited to the Udaipur Chintan Shivir of the party, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will address a full day brainstorming session in New Delhi for early 120 leaders that include 70 Working Presidents of different states.

AICC sources said during the day-long interaction Sonia and Rahul will take the feedback from 16 national spokespersons and the party functionaries, who could not attend the Udaipur Chintan Shivir which had invited 430 persons.

The party will be holding deliberations with the leaders including many general secretaries and communication heads from the states at a time when there seems to be no end of desertions from Congress despite all the unity talk at the party’s recently concluded Chintan Shivir in Jaipur.

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While former Punjab PCC Chief Sunil Jakhar, who had announced his resignation on Facebook during the ongoing Chintan Shivir in Udaipur joined the BJP on Thursday, the party’s much projected Patidar face in Gujarat Hardik Patel quit Congress on Wednesday casting Congress and ruing that he “wasted” three years with the party.

A party functionary, however, said that the ball has been set rolling to implement the decisions taken at the Udaipur conclave to stem the rot in the party.

A senior party functionary said that at least 50 per cent of Block and District Presidents of Congress will be below 45, though he conceded that implementing the same at Pradesh Congress Committee and Congress Working Committee level may take four-five months more.

A spate of resignations from the party will be witnessed in the next few days to facilitate the party's facelift with the party that has decided not to keep any office bearer holding the same post for more than five years. As such major changes can be anticipated in the role of those looking after the party's communication, general secretaries and the state in-charges.

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With the first stage of Jan Jagaran Abhiyan of the Congress that is focussing on highlighting issues like price rise and inflation completed, the party will launch its second phase on June 15 and the programme will finally merge with the hyped Bharat Jodo Yatra that Rahul Gandhi will start from Kanyakumari on October 2.

Besides, a committee will now be set up soon to act on the six reports finalised by the six committees during the Chintan Shivir to prepare a blueprint of the future road map. The leader claimed that with Congress faring badly in the Hindi belt, a conscious decision was taken to prepare the Udaipur declaration in Hindi to reach the target audience as “in 200 seats in Hindi belt, it is the BJP versus the Congress.”

In the past, most of the declarations of the party were prepared originally in English.

During the six-month-long Yatra, the first of its kind that the Congress will be taking out that will focus on the large issues of saving the Constitution and the nation’s federal structure will also, the Congress will rope in like-minded civil society groups and individuals in different regions where interaction programmes could be organised. Groups and individuals, who had helped the UPA government enact much rights-based legislation through the then NAC led Sonia Gandhi-led could be drafted in for amplifying the Congress voice during the Yatra.